Reed helps Illinois Wesleyan to Final Four

Former Prospect High School basketball star Kevin Reed is fully aware of how difficult it can be to reach an NCAA Final Four.

Consider the travel itinerary for the Illinois Wesleyan junior and his teammates Wednesday to get to the Division III Final Four. They drove from Bloomington to Moline, where the team split up for flights to Atlanta and Chicago that would take them to connecting flights to Salem, Va.

“It’s definitely worth it,” Reed said as his team prepared to fly out of Quad City International Airport late Wednesday morning.

Particularly since the road Reed and Wesleyan took to get to this point also had its share of obstacles. The 6-foot-7 Reed played little his first two years and not at all in the second semester last year to focus on getting his academics in order.

Now Reed is starting for a Wesleyan (23-7) team that went from nearly missing the tournament to making today’s 5 p.m. semifinal against 30-1 Cabrini (Pa.) in Salem. Wisconsin-Whitewater (27-4) plays Massachusetts Institute of Technology (29-1) in the 7 p.m. semifinal with the championship at 6 p.m. Saturday.

Reed has started all 30 games for the Titans and has showed the versatility that made him a two-time all-area pick at Prospect. He’s the team’s No. 4 scorer (8.8 points a game), leading rebounder (5.9) and shooter (59.8 percent), is second in blocks and steals and third in assists.

“The seniors this year always made me feel comfortable and part of their class, so I’ve felt really good,” Reed said. “We get along pretty well and it seems everyone is genuinely excited when other people do well. No one cares who scores and it’s all about the team with everyone.”

Reed’s transition was not so smooth as he played in only six games as a freshman. He played four games and made two starts last year before deciding to improve his academic standing.

“It was weird because I hadn’t not played basketball in 15 years,” said Reed, who is majoring in finance. “It was difficult watching people play and watching guys have fun. But I needed to do it to get myself in the right place.”

But Reed didn’t have any doubt that he was at the right place at Wesleyan.

“It was tough for me to come in as an underclassman and try to pick and choose when I was supposed to be aggressive and when I was supposed to lay off,” Reed said. “I just couldn’t get into a rhythm.

“Before I decided to come here people told me I wasn’t going to get to play for awhile because they had a lot of big guys. I took it as a challenge. (Head coach Ron) Rose is a great guy and I wanted to play for him and the guys on the team are such great guys.”

The general consensus among all of them was they would be out of the 64-team field after finishing third in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin behind Wheaton and North Central.

“When we did make it, it was like a second chance,” Reed said.

Reed had 8 points and 5 rebounds as Wesleyan stunned top-ranked Hope (Mich.) on its home floor 108-101 in two overtimes in the second round. Reed had 9 points and 11 rebounds in the 70-49 win over Wittenberg (Ohio) that set up the Final Four trip.

“Everyone is clicking at the right time,” Reed said. “A lot of times two of us would play well and three of us would play bad. We have a lot of people playing better than they did during the season.”

Reed said Evanston senior Stephen Rudnicki (6.4 ppg) and Galesburg sophomore Victor Davis (10.8) have played well in the postseason.

Jordan Zimmer of downstate Delavan leads the Titans in scoring (15.5). Oak Forest’s John Koschnitzky (9.4), Oswego’s Andrew Ziemnik (7.5) and Richards’ Eliud Gonzalez (6.5) have also fueled the Titans’ run with Reed.

Now they’ll try to join the 1997 team that won a Division III national title. They took third in 1996, 2001 and 2006.

“We all knew at the beginning of the season we had the type of team that could make this run,” Reed said. “At our best we can beat anyone in the country but we had a couple of bumps in the road throughout the season.”

Which made the trip to Virginia seem like smooth sailing for the Titans and Kevin Reed.